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Overwhelmed

5 Conversations To Have Before Quitting Your Church Job

We all have bad days, but is it time to quit your job?

I have regular conversations with people who are considering quitting their church job (side note: adam@adammclaughlin.net if you want to talk). I’m glad that I’m trusted to be a sounding board for people who, in many cases, want me to talk them out of quitting.

(For clarification, this situation looks very different if everything is good and you’re taking a new job or moving to a new city, but this post is for someone who is at the end of their rope and ready to throw in the towel.)

In most cases, the people who contact me thinking they’re ready to quit really love their church, and they really love some major components of what they get to do – the people they work with, or the work they get to do, or the results they’re seeing – but something has come up along the way and they’re not sure how else to address it besides quit.

Often something has changed:

  • ‘Part-time’ requirements and salary have started to creep into full-time hours
  • They took the job at a lower pay structure because that’s what their church could afford, they wanted to help, and suddenly their spouse has been downsized at work and lost their accompanying income
  • They were promised a decision-making seat at the table, but restructuring the organization leaves them reporting to someone who doesn’t understand their work
  • “Other work as assigned” has become so broad and inclusive that they no longer have time to do the things they love and were hired to do.

This list has infinite possibilities, but usually boils down to X (expectation) has turned into Y (reality) and now you’re not sure you’re still a fit.

While it’s way more profitable to have the conversation about what reality will be BEFORE taking a position at your church (check out this post on conversations to have before taking your church communications job) here we are with today’s reality, needing to make today’s decision.

5 conversations, Adam? I’m ready to give my notice today.

Hold up. In most cases, you took your job at your church because you love serving your church, wanted to help make a difference in your community, and had an excitement unlike any other job you’ve taken before – you saw this as way more than a job – so, before you jump to a decision, let’s see what conversations can be had to bring that excitement back for you and your church.

When I was getting ready to move on from my church communications job, it came with about 6 months of conversations and I gave 10 weeks’ notice. I wanted to do everything possible to position our church to succeed as we were transitioning, rather than create a void.

After a culmination of discussions with many people in many positions at many churches, I’ve discovered 5 conversations that need to be had before you quit your church job.

 

A conversation with your spouse / close friend

friends talkingSomeone who has known you for a while can help you see where you have repeating patterns in your life. Maybe the conversation looks like,

“You change jobs every 3 years. It’s been 2 and a half years. Is this something you need to mature out of?”

or

“You had the same complaints in your last two jobs. If you decide to move on, make sure you ask questions during the next interview process to find out if you’re going to run into this same complaint again.”

It’s possible – more than possible – that the problem isn’t the job, but that you’re the one who needs to learn and grow through this situation. If the problem is “My managers always have their thumb on me,” or “I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off,” then maybe it’s time to evaluate whether or not the job, or the manager, or the co-workers are really the problem.

Your spouse or friend will also help you recognize if the stressor looks like A, but may actually be B. Is it possible…

  • The issue is not your salary, but an issue of not having a budget at home.
  • The issue is not that you’ve got too much to do at work, but you’re distracted because a family member is sick.
  • The issue is not that your manager is putting too much on your plate, but that he or she has an idea and you’re not willing to have a conversation about saying no, or asking what could be dropped in order to take on that new piece.

 

A conversation with a mentor

Hopefully, you have a mentor in your life who is not your boss. Use this framework for a conversation with them: “I’m feeling __________, and I think it’s because of ____________. Would you help me think through ways to make a change?”

Here are some examples:

“I’m feeling overwhelmed and I think it’s because our staff’s expectation is that any project they come up with should be completed “By this Sunday.” Would you help me think through ways to make a change?”

“I’m feeling frustrated, and I think it’s because the volunteer team I lead was built without clear expectations by the last person, so they don’t feel a need to show up on time, or sometimes at all. Would you help me think through ways to make a change?”

“I’m feeling distracted at work and I think it’s because when I took this job we agreed to part-time hours and salary, but the workload is more like full-time hours. Would you help me think through ways to make a change?”

“I’m feeling exhausted, and I think it’s because I want every sermon to be perfect and I’m staying up late, getting up early, and losing sleep that my sermon isn’t perfect. Would you help me think through ways to make a change?”

“I’m feeling undervalued because I have creative ideas on how to do my work, but my manager is telling me what to do and how to do it, which isn’t what I was expecting when I was hired. Would you help me think through ways to make a change?”

 

Often, there’s a solution that’s right in front of your nose: a change in perspective or a new piece of software to help you with your tasks or a conversation worth having with your team or the person you report to.

Set a clear action and a “by when?” date.

“By next Thursday, I will find a piece of software to help me get organized.” or “By our volunteer meeting, I will prepare notes to help our volunteers understand the impact we’re making and the importance of showing up on time.”

 

An exploration conversation with the person you report to

Hopefully, you’re having regular conversations with the person you report to – maybe weekly or monthly – and this is the first of 3 conversations you’ll start with them during this process. The conversation may take multiple sessions, involve other people, and at times leave you with more questions to come back and discuss later.

This exploration conversation is about my expectations and your expectations.

The framework for this conversation looks like “When I started, I was expecting _________, and it seems like your expectation is _______________. Could we evaluate and clarify the expectations for my position in writing?”

Let me jump in and say that most of this confusion is often caused by not having a job description. How is this possible? I’m not exactly sure, but it seems to be a common trend in churches. It starts with “We’d like to bring someone on to do X. Would you be interested?” and the X turns into X & Y, and then eventually X, Y & Z, and the kitchen sink, and the dishes, and then… well, you get the picture.

It could look like:

When I started, I was expecting to run digital marketing – social media, website, email newsletter, and it seems like your expection is that I’ll be doing all marketing, like printing, graphic design, and video editting. Could we evaluate amd clarify the expectations for my position in writing?

When I started, I was expecting part time hours, and it seems like your expecation is full-time hours in order to accomplish X, Y, Z, kitchen sink. Could we evaluate and clarify the expectations for my position in writing?

This conversation could also happen in the context of something you took on in a pinch.

When I was asked to take on running the nursery, I was expecting that it would be temporary for 3-6 months until we found someone who is passionate about doing that, and it seems like there hasn’t been any progress in finding someone to do that. Could we evaluate and clarify the expectations for my involvement in leading the nursery?

The follow up to this conversation could be that the expectations are reduced to match your hours, or your salary is increased to match your workload, or part of the expectations are outsourced to someone who specializes in that area.

Again, I’m saying this purely for the sake of redundancy: Expectations are way better addressed BEFORE you accept a job. If you’re about to start working at a church or haven’t created a job description, here’s a post I wrote about creating a church communications job description.

 

A conversation with God

may praying at churchThis isn’t just thrown in for the sake of saying it. It’s actually really important to pray about this decision at THIS POINT in the conversation.

Take the conversation you’ve had with your spouse, mentor, and the person you report to, and pray about those conversations. Pray, listen, trust God.

  • Philippians 4:6 (NKJV)

    Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

 

A ‘To-The-Point’ conversation with the person you report to

This has the risk of coming across as an ultimatum, so you need to be very clear that’s not how it comes across to the person you report to.

It could look like “This isn’t an ultimatum, and I want to be sure that I’m clear with you that after our last conversation, I’m still wrestling with ___________ (my salary, my hours, my workload, my temporary project that seems to have turned permanent, my relationship with a co-worker, etc) and I may have to make a different decision about where I work if we can’t find a way to resolve that. Can we discuss how to resolve that?”

This isn’t the time to express your feelings about the situation, but to give factual information: Basically, my ability to continue to work here is based on _________. Not “Here is the emotional reason why I’m a victim or under-appreciated or so mad that I’m justifying this decision.”

If your part-time salary isn’t sufficient for the full-time expectations, then that’s the fact. Being angry, or annoyed, or sad, or disappointed doesn’t change the fact that your salary is insufficient, so do your best to leave your emotion out of the conversation.

Don’t leave any facts out of this conversation. If your concerns are your hours AND a specific co-worker, then don’t just mention hours. You’ll put yourself in a predicament if your hours get address, but in 2 months you need to start these conversations over about that co-worker.

As careful as you may be in this conversation, it’s possible that this is the last conversation you’ll have. It may simply be perceived as an ultimatum, which leads to the person you report to saying “It’s not going to change, so I guess you’ll be moving on.”

To be as careful as possible to avoid this, be sure to frame your conversation as above with “Can we discuss how to resolve that?”

 

A conversation with yourself

Yep, I’m that guy who talks to himself. Late night walks are my friend, both for praying, and also for self-reflection.

This is where you’ll need to make your decision based on all of your other conversations. If your “To The Point” the conversation ends with, “Sorry, nothing can change right now,” then you need to decide what your priorities need to be, or are there external ways for you to continue to make this work.

 

A conversation where you give your notice

two men meetingIn my case, I gave 10-weeks notice. This not only showed goodwill toward the organization, but also positioned them to find a replacement, decide how they were going to address the decision with the staff, my volunteer team and the church (depending on your position, this may not be necessary), and gave me the time necessary to organize my passwords, put some pending systems in writing, make a list of services, clear up pending expense reports, etc.

Make sure you request a meeting with whoever you think needs to hear this conversation at the same time. This may be the person you report to and your Lead Pastor, or you and your spouse might meet with your Pastor, or it may be one-on-one.

This may be a difficult conversation to keep emotion away from but try your best – not that we deny the emotions that God has given us, but don’t treat emotion as the reason for your decision.

This needs to be a factual conversation, not driven by disappointments, blaming or a flippant attitude.

“We’ve had conversations about X. I understand that’s not going to change, so I need to make a personal change that includes finding somewhere else to work. My last day will be X. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be part of this team and learn here.”

There will typically be a few follow up questions, and it’s important to answer those as clearly and factually as possible.

 

Just to be clear: I did this wrong

 

I wasn’t emotional, and I wasn’t mad, and we didn’t have a blowup, but I was so unclear in what could have been a clear conversation that someone had to ask “Are you saying you’re leaving?”

Yeah, that’s embarrassing, and I shake my head just thinking about it, and even more so I basically had to resign twice, once without clarity, and once with clarity in the same meeting.

I started with “I love this team, and we’ve been learning about growing into our calling, and I would love to continue to be part of the team, and I want to maintain our friendship, and I think my next season is in business, and ….”

After I was asked, “Are you saying you’re leaving?” then I was able to create a helpful conversation.

For your benefit, the benefit or your church, and what they could learn for when they hire the next person to replace you, clarity is the best approach.

 

These aren’t always easy conversations, but you started working at your church for a reason. Don’t let a bad day, or a conversation left unsaid be your tipping point to walk away from something you love.

 

 

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Dear Pastor, Your Communications Department is Overwhelmed

Dear Pastor,

Whether your key communications and marketing person is staff or volunteer, you’ve probably run into hearing that he or she is overwhelmed from time to time.

You need to know that it’s not unusual for the position, not always something they are doing wrong, and not something that can be fixed overnight (or debatably, not something that can ever be permanently resolved).

(I also wrote this blog post to help Communications Teams avoid using “overwhelm” as an excuse.)

There are some strategies that you can implement to help them address feeling overwhelmed and reduce the likeliness of it recurring.

My goal is not to defend or justify laziness, disorganization or an entitlement mentality. My goal is to give you a peek into our world – a world we can’t always articulate – with some practical tools to help so your communications department can reduce the likelihood of being overwhelmed and be as effective as possible in helping your church introduce your community to Jesus.

My hope is that this article will help start conversations between communications teams and their leaders. If you need help having what may seem like a difficult conversation, I would recommend reading the 5 dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni, and Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute.

 

Why is feeling ‘Overwhelmed’ affecting your church communications department?

Before we dig into strategies to mitigate and address overwhelming situations, I wanted to dig in a bit about why they affect the communications department specifically. I know these details are different for every church, community, and culture, but generally speaking, here are some of the ideas that affect most churches.

Consideration 1) Vertical: The Communication Leader is Middle Management

The communications department is somewhere in middle management in the organization’s structure. Usually, the communications person is not the lead Pastor, and often they have someone working under them that they oversee – whether this is a graphic design contractor like Church Media Squad, or working with external software and teams like Text In Church, or a volunteer team on-site at your church.

While not making the decision, or sometimes getting input into decisions, the Church Communications person represents the decision as if it’s their own and communicates on behalf of the leadership and the church (internally or externally).

This can be taxing when we have an idea of how to best communicate something, which channel to use, or how to position an announcement, but we’re considered robots – following directions about how, when and where from someone who may not understand our tools – rather than considering us creative people who specialize understanding our tools and presenting ideas in a unique way.

Consideration 2) Horizontal: We primarily serve other departments.

Some leaders are in a solely-focussed role, while other leaders who are wearing a few hats may have to work in 2 or 3 categories. Your communications person needs to have their ears to the ground in almost every category, event and department at your church.

For example, the youth leader has a full plate getting youth services ready, preparing games, food, missions trips, weekends away, counseling students, communicating with parents and executing midweek services or small groups. While the responsibilities are diverse, all of those items fall in the category of the youth department.

A week in a communication person’s world may look like:

  • When is VBS?
  • How many new small groups are we adding this year?
  • What is our Social Media strategy leading up to Back to School / Back to Church?
  • Did the printer quit partway through printing the bulletins?
  • What are we including in announcements this weekend?
  • Did we get that email sent out about the food drive coming up this weekend?
  • Where did last week’s volunteer photographer leave the battery when they were done?
  • Is it time for us to rebuild the website? Kids ministry pictures are outdated.
  • Should our church get an app?
  • Oh, there’s a text message from the 70’s and over married couples skydiving small group asking why they aren’t getting an announcement during service this weekend!
  • Why aren’t we getting as many new likes on facebook this month as we got last month?
  • I need to get a quote from the printer on new banners for our parking lot.
  • Which graphic would best suit the upcoming series?

my way or the highway signWe often have to make decisions that are going to lead to some amount of disappointment in other departments:

  • We’re announcing this but not that (one person is happy and another is not.)
  • We only have one spot to hang a banner, so we’re hanging this banner up, but not that one (one department gets promoted, and another isn’t).
  • We’re not going to promote small groups in that way (now a whole group of people is disappointed because they wanted their small group to get an announcement, bulletin mention, yard signs, billboard, radio ad, a personal Instagram video from Pastor, and a parade downtown are all upset that you “don’t value their group as much as they do”)

Consideration 3) How long does that really take?

In addition to having both Vertical and Horizontal responsibilities, our “to do” list is often misunderstood or misrepresented. The question of “How long does that really take?” is an important part of the ongoing conversation that you can have with your team.

With the perception that “Posting on facebook is as quick as sending a text message” or “Creating a 2-minute video is hitting record on your phone and recording for 2 minutes,” or  “I write a 3 paragraph email in 10 minutes, so writing a 3 paragraph email newsletter should only take 10 minutes,” or “Just send the bulletin to the printer and pick it up when it’s done in an hour.” (I could go on…)

In light of those perceptions, the ACTUAL time it takes to craft a Facebook post, or shoot an announcement video or write an email newsletter may seem too long and can create a sense that the communications person is unproductive or needs more on their plate to fill their work hours.

Did it really take you 20 minutes to edit a photo and create a 1-sentence caption for Instagram? Did it really take a whole afternoon to film and edit a 4-minute announcement video? You’ve been working on that email newsletter for how long?!

Keep in mind that a 40-minute sermon may take you days to craft at times, and other times, could literally take only 40 minutes, and many care and counselling roles at churches are driven by meetings: a 1-hour meeting takes one hour. A 15-minute meeting takes 15 minutes. Surprises and overruns don’t happen often when you have back-to-back meetings – you can simply schedule another meeting if needed for a future date.

The same isn’t true when creativity and technology meet at a crossroads.

While we have tools that make us more efficient, creatives often use the tools to do better work, not faster work – we may use a tool that gives us a better final outcome, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we spend less time picking a color, or choosing our words, or adding in final touches to a video.

Consideration 4) How much energy does that take?

It’s not uncommon for a creative person to be exhausted by 2 pm or 3 pm.

Sometimes we’re night owls, so our best ideas (and best work) happen late at night. It’s possible we were up until 3 am night working on graphics for church this weekend, then at the office at 9 am the next day for a staff meeting.

Maybe it’s that we’re morning people, so we’re able to knock out a creative video in an hour at 9 am, but that level of energy is going to leave us unable to put together a perfect tagline for the next series at 3 pm.

Inversely, someone who is a night owl who has a flex-schedule may work until 2 am, get into the office at 11 am and have some of their most productive time mid-afternoon with a great project to show from the night before.

Being “less productive” from mid-afternoon until the end of the day isn’t always a symptom of laziness (although, let’s be clear that sometimes it may), but it may be a symptom that we’ve given our best for the organization at other times through the day, and we need to recharge.

Just because something took 1 hour this morning, doesn’t mean we can turn around and repeat it in 1 hour this afternoon.

Consider a creative day like a boxing match. A punch is a punch, but that doesn’t mean that round 5 has the same level of sustained energy as round 1.

I’ve heard from many Pastors that they are exhausted after preaching for an hour on Sunday. It would be ridiculous to assume that one hour of replying to emails on Monday might take the same energy as presenting a one hour message on Sunday. The same is true for someone who is spending their creative energy.

The same thing may be true early in the week compared to later in the week. It’s different for every person, but there has to be some flex built into the schedule for considerations about “How much energy does that take?”

Consideration 5) Our world is always changing.

…And I don’t mean that every few years a new channel shows up. What I mean is that what you see another church doing on Instagram may not be able to reproducible the next week, or what you see someone with a large following doing on facebook may be a feature that requires 100K or more ‘likes’ on their page, and you simply aren’t there.

What you did on facebook last month to get an incredible response may fall flat this month, Instagram may add or remove a feature, and twitter may change how their timeline functions altogether.

You may not get the results you’re used to from one day to another, or your communications person might have built a strategy around a particular feature which is no longer accessible one week into a campaign.

A program they’re used to using could run an update and change the layout of the toolbar that takes them an extra half hour to get re-oriented, and Google may change what constitutes as “spam” email, and way fewer people may open the email this week compared to last week.

Unlike the worship team that turns on the same sound system each week or the kid’s team that has the same classroom space in your building, their world, tools (and the communication strategies/tools they use) are always a moving target.

Consideration 6) We execute with a strategy in mind.

While you may think that it’s only going to take a few minutes to publish a simple “last-minute” post on facebook, that may actually hurt your big-picture strategy.

In this example, Facebook wants to see engagement on each individual post to determine how often to share the next. If you had just posted on facebook a few minutes ago, it can actually hurt the impact of both posts by publishing too quickly again since there wasn’t much time for people to see and engage with the first post.

If your communications team has a strategy about what gets included in Sunday announcements, it could actually hurt the impact of the 3 important things they want to share when you insist on Sunday morning that there are 4 additional things that need to be mentioned without discussion.

They love your church. They’re doing this because they love the community, your vision, and they want to communicate effectively. They’ve made decisions that lead to a certain result (and your team would probably love to have a conversation with you about that.)

I imagine that you wouldn’t randomly walk into a youth service and tell the youth leader to add in a new song that night or tell the kids teachers on a Sunday morning to change their lesson plan. A random “I need you to do this now” doesn’t reflect an appreciation for the strategy your communications person brings to the table.

Something more like “We need to communicate this urgently. How can we best do that?” shows that you trust what they’re doing and you’re trusting them to handle the details.

Consideration 7) Our work is on public display

Ask your communications person how many communications they get per month about a typo on the screens or a detail incorrect on a facebook post (that instead of commenting privately, the event co-ordinator decided to make a public comment on the post to correct the details). It’s not that your communications person is sloppy, but we’re human and mistakes happen – and ours are often public.

Worse than actual, identifiable mistakes, we also get to hear everyone’s opinion about “Why would you choose that background?” or “Can we do something a little more subtle?” or “I don’t like that font” – and often from people who are unrelated to the event being promoted.

I once had a gentleman come to me after church to tell me that he noticed a typo in someone’s name on the screen during a video I made for our building campaign. He said “If we’re raising that much money, it’s disappointing that we can’t even spell someone’s name correctly.” (this was only one of the three times the name appeared during the video.)

I asked if he would like to help and preview the videos like a “proof reader.” He said he wasn’t the one getting paid to be sure it was right, that’s my job.

Most departments may have an internal memo with a spelling error, or the youth leader has an off night during his message, or in a meeting, something is said that could have been worded differently.

Our work is getting mailed out to the community, posted on the front lawn, shared on facebook, seen on the screens, or hung in the lobby.

How would you handle it if every time you misspoke during a sermon, someone stood up and let you know like it was urgent?

A fire alarm is urgent. Misspeaking, having an unclear thought, mentioning one scripture reference but turning to another, or tripping over your words is not worth someone yelling “FIRE!”

I realize that you’ll often get a follow-up email from someone about your message, but even that person knows to distinguish between what they think is important (important enough to send an email) and urgent (like jumping up in the middle of church service).

 

How can you help reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed?

Consideration 1) Vertical: Middle Management.

Move towards giving your communications person a seat at the decision table and allow them to earn your trust. You don’t have to flippantly toss decisions to them or take their recommendation every time, but a simple “What do you think?” or “If this was your decision, what would you do?” along with hearing the rest of the discussion is going to be helpful in communicating the big picture.

Consideration 2) Horizontal: Serving other departments.

Equip your communications team with tools to help them be more efficient and give their best. Here is a toolbox of what I would consider essentials for less than $100/month.

With the help of that toolbox, you’ll equip your team do their best in tracking projects, create incoming request forms, and work with other departments in your church as efficiently as possible.

Delegate communications decisions to the Communications person, support them as the decision-maker, and bring them into a conversation if someone comes to you to request that you veto a decision.

Consideration 3) How long does that really take?

Ask the question when you delegate the responsibility and ask it again when a project is completed.

Come to an agreement on what is a reasonable expectation, and where time consumed on one project may not provide the best return compared to that same time spent elsewhere.

Be slow to assume that making a request is so simple that it can be easily fit into the workload instantly.

Build time into the schedule for your communications person to be creative, dream and explore new ideas. Stuffing every minute of their day is going to be exhausting, and you’ll get the same recurring results… which leads us to the next point.

Consideration 4) How much energy does that really take?

Have conversations like “What is your most creative time of day?” and “When do you do your best work?” and “What would an ideal schedule look like for you to bring your best to the team?”

Push back against the tendency you may have to set office hours. When Sunday rolls around, do you want to present your best work or do you want to check the box that said someone was present at their desk from 9 am – 5 pm all week? Of course, nobody at your church cares how many hours a project took, or whether it was completed at 2 pm or 2 am.

What matters when all is said and done is the end result, not the schedule necessary to create the result.

This isn’t to say that your communications leader can miss morning meetings if they’re a night person, or miss afternoon meetings if they like to start earlier in the day. But if there’s nothing scheduled at 9 am, and they worked an extra 4 hours last night, what difference will it make on Sunday if they show up at the office at 9 am or not?

Earn the best from your communications person by having clear goals and helping them meet those goals in whatever time it takes.

Consideration 5) Our world is always changing.

Have regular conversations that start with “What strategy do you have in mind for this event?” or “How are you planning to promote this?” or “What have you seen others doing that could work here?” Understand that we can’t promise the same results since the tools we use are always changing, and those changes are outside of our control.

Avoid saying, “We’ve done it like this before. Do that again!” or “They’re doing it. Why can’t we?”

Instead, have conversations with your communications person that lean into their wisdom, experience, and hands-on knowledge of the tools they have available to them. Ask questions that start with “What would you suggest for…?”

We’ll never get away from changing social media tools, but you can reduce the stress that keeping up with those details can cause by giving us some freedom to try new things, and explore. Recognize that at any time, the answer might be “That’s not how it works any longer.”

Consideration 6) We execute with a strategy in mind.

While we can technically post something quickly on facebook, it may not be the best strategic decision based on the technology, the way we want to present that information or the timing.

The same goes for what we plan to include in announcements, (or how many announcements), what we post on facebook, twitter or Instagram, how we’ll send out text messages or our email newsletter.

By all means, have conversations with your communications person about their decisions, their strategy, pick their brain about what and why, and be clear about what you’re hoping to achieve so they can help your church get to that end goal…

…AND, remember that this is our life and focus. We don’t take the responsibility lightly, and we’re not (usually) trying to be flippant or lazy or territorial if we say that your suggestion about how we communicate something may have some better options.

Consideration 7) Our work is public.

Learn to distinguish the difference between important and urgent. Important means “That’s worth noting and talking about later so that we try to avoid that mistake next time.” Urgent means “This needs to be addressed now.”

When you walk up on stage after an announcement video and make a joke about a typo on the screen, or send off a text message about the bulletin when it’s already printed and can’t be adjusted, then that’s come across as “Urgent: This can’t wait and has to be addressed now.”

It’s a bit overwhelming to be told that “This is urgent, but you won’t be able to do anything about it until next Sunday.”

 

Here’s an example of the distinction between urgent and important:

Urgent: “The time was incorrect on that announcement, and we need you to be here tomorrow at 7 pm instead of 7:30 pm” – That’s worth addressing now.

Important: “There’s an extra “w” before the website address in the bulletin. I’ll send an email Monday so a correction can be made before the bulletin goes to print next week.”

Support your communications team and recognize team effort if someone else points out an imperfection.

“We’ve been working on a lot as a team. I’ll have someone take a look this week,” causes much less stress than “So and So looks after our marketing. Go point it out to them” or “Here’s some public shaming in the form of a joke because I don’t want someone to think I’m responsible for the issue.”

 

 

Learn to delegate to and trust your communications department:

This could be difficult. This may not seem ideal. They have probably made mistakes before, and they are publicly representing your church, so if you don’t feel like the person in place is the right person for the job, please correct the situation sooner than later.

It doesn’t serve anyone to keep someone around whom you don’t trust, you won’t delegate responsibilty to, and you don’t believe knows what they’re doing in their job position. However, if you trust that they know what they’re doing, then let them do it.

If the person overseeing your marekting and communications is not someone that you trust to take the reigns, either get them the training they need to become that person, have the conversations about what indicators you need to see in order to build trust with them, or release them from the position. It’s not an easy request, but neither is the veil of trust when there’s no foundation to support it.

Lastly,

I want to be clear that your communications person is not against you if they have different ideas.

They’re not trying to steer the public side of the church in a different direction through social media or public relations. If they want to discuss a decision further, it’s because they see an opportunity for improvement, not that they’re looking for a reason to tear down. Please give him or her an open line to have conversations about what is working and what they think could improve.

They love the church. They love your vision. They love you. They need your support when they’re feeling overwhelmed.

-Adam